John, you're an idiot. The topic of the thread you're referring to was the dewey eyed Scott Brown story. You repeatedly tried to bait me into admitting my laughing at that story was a support of Coakley. You're turning me into your little strawman because you're an idiot who needs someone on the internets to yell. I've never said anything remotely supportive of Coakley, or of so-called recovered memory prosecutions. I do indeed think the voters of Massachusetts are quite capable of evaluating Coakley - and her role in this case - on their own, without my input. Big fucking deal.

Go flail at the wind you moron. I have nothing to do with this race, with these candidates, or your need to have a target to flail at.

And note, please, that the article reminds us that these stupid, and venal, prosecutions were happening around the country in the 1980s. Yes, just another prosecutor - it's not an incorrect dismissal. This is why I also said prosecutors have to be watched, that they are poor political prospects. They do terrible things to people in order to build law and order records to keep running on.

And right on cue. Beth you are the one that described Coakley as "just another prosecutor" or something to that effect. Sorry your party nominated the 21st century equivalent of witch trier for Senate.

Exactly, John. My description of her as "just another prosecutor" is based on my dim evaluation of prosecutors. What's hard to understand about that? At this point, I have to dismiss you as a troll. For all I know, you're Jeremy in right-wing persona.

Laugh if you must, but those evil clowns and robots are still out there. Far from releasing miscreants like Amirault, the state should build a gingerbread maximum-security facility in an enchanted forest to hold them more securely.

Doing the right thing as a prosecutor is not hard at all. The discretion is available to you and no appeal can be taken from it, unless you count making Bill O'Reilly mad. In fact the reputation for doing the right thing instead of doing a political thing as a prosecutor is of far greater value to you both in the Office and at elections where a prosecutor's reputation for integrity wins. So what makes a Coakley into such a bad person for the job? An education in a system of favoritism and expected corruption is what does it. The Kennedy seat is no longer Mafia Joe's or the legacy his politics left to Massachusetts.

I have to agree with Beth here. Coakley looks to be a terrible candidate. That's no more Beth's fault that John McCain is my fault.

That said, the general contempt combined with gloom that I see among Democrats is really strange. It's like they expected some massive change in the world just because Obama was elected. They expected all the problems to be whooshed away. And now they seem perplexed into paralysis because that has not happened.

Unless Beth attempts a citizens arrest of Coakley, she shouldn't be considered a serious commenter here. At the very least, condemns Coakley and the entire Democratic Party, right here, and I mean right now.

Anyone who cares about civil rights and the criminal justice system has to be appalled by Coakley. For God's sake can someone please be held accountable for this stuff? This is not red team versus blue team.

I read Rabinowitz' essays contemporaneously. She is a hero for the ages for stopping a virtual mass hysteria peculiar to prosecutors judges and juries. Those trials were a modern version of the Salem witch trials.

These trials do go back to the 1980s and the whole bogus recovered memory scam--Look up Wentachee WA and the destruction of citizens rights--Look at Janet Reno in Dade County--these were the modern equivalent of salem witch trials--

A politically mobile prosecutor (or AG such as Eliot Spitzer) is capable of doing great harm to individuals, and our legal system seems to condone it--Had it not been for Mr Johnson, the Duke "rape" case would have ruined 8 more lives.

Ralph L: Coakley's opponent in the 2006 AG race was Larry Frisoli. There's an article on Big Government about him today. He seems to have been preoccupied with her non-prosecution of the curling-iron rape case.

Wow, the Amirault case makes the McMartin trial look like a triumph of justice.

I'd like to know who was the idiot Republican who couldn't bring this up in her AG race and beat her to death with it.

Nobody wants to be seen as soft on child molestors. We still believe where there's smoke there must be fire.

The whole judicial system apparently failed here -- the jury, the judge who thought the evidence was credible, the Governor, the Bureau of Pardons and Paroles, etc. Only the two later judges stand out.

Most shameful moment in Mass legal history. The prosecutions actually occurred when Middlesex DA (later AG and failed gubernatorial candiate) was Scott Harshbarger. He was followed as DA by Tom Riley, also later AG and failed gov candidate, who faithfully supported these prosecutions. Last in line as DA was Martha C (now AG and, I fervently hope, failed Sen candidate). She vigorously supported these prosecutions long after it became clear to anyone who looked at the facts that the Amiraults were entirely innocent. She even worked to overturn the parole board's recommendation the Gerald Amiraults sentence be commuted (and succeeded, thanks also to our then spineless RINO acting gov Jane Swift). Coakely is despicable.

It's like they expected some massive change in the world just because Obama was elected. They expected all the problems to be whooshed away. And now they seem perplexed into paralysis because that has not happened.

Why the surprise, Seven? No less a commenter than Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle called Barack Obama a "Lightworker", capable of realigning all the evils of the world, and make it brand-spanking new again.

Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.

That said, I think the GOP ought to think very clearly about this election in regard to its future strategy. Coakley is very easy to run against. She's a rotten person and her political positions are not very thoughtful. Even the liberals of Masschuwhatever can see through them, and through her. Voting for her is voting for one more mindless cog in the existing political machine.

Brown, by contrast, is thoughtful and seems to be authentic. He says what's what. He is nothing like the crusty old fat white men that seemed to dominate the GOP in the Bush years. He will be a breath of fresh air if he is elected.

I think the election is much more about these character aspects than anything else. Health care comes into play only in the fact that it provides a test of the candidates' different internal characteristics.

If the GOP thinks that this election portends that any fat crusty old Republican man or stern rich old Republican woman can run on an anti-Obamacare platform and succeed, they will be sorely mistaken!

Vspurs..."is Obama an enlightened being?" may refer to his 2 pack a day habit. He has to lighten up a cigarettes 40 time a day. If it means spiritual power, then he must have changed his incandescent spirit for a weak flourescent spirit about the time Sarah Palin's facebook started speaking out about Death Panel planning.

Skipper50 said..."Was that prosecution/persecution at all reminiscent of the Duke University "rape" cases?"

Far worse.

I had no idea of Coakley's involvement in those cases until I read the Rabinowitz article. Dorothy Rabinowitz has been on these cases for years with brilliant journalism. She deserves some kind of prize for her work.

JRH...I agree with your analysis. Newt Gingrich is poison, and Fred Thompson too. That leaves Romney and Huckabee as older and white men. Then we have Timmy Pawlenty who is young and white, but acts like a wimp rather than a fighter. Are there any other non "old white male" candidates available? The Governor of Texas perhaps. Or does a 45 year old white woman have a chance?

JRH ...You have brewed your Troll Tea Leaves by responding to our open minded and loose Tea Leaves. It's a Zen thing. But consider that making a pact with Palin may be a serious undertaking for a Troll.

Yes, I live in Cambridge. Right now we are more concerned about where we are making resies for dindin tonight. I am contemplating between Algerian and French/Asian fusion.

I was out in Framingham today, if that counts as more real America-tons of Brazillians though (HOT), and I didn't really notice any excitement. Where's the excitement? I want to be part of the excitementI actually don't even care that much but I am fascinated about all the interest.

I did get my balls shaved on Newbury Street and didn't get much of a sense of the excitement.

Newbury Street may not be the best gauge though, maybe?

Although Burberry was having a fierce sale and Pottery Barn had everything 50% off, because it is closing the Newbury Store. I did put a scented candle (storm watch scent) on the steps of the store to show my sadness.

The "people" (ie courts) absolutely hate going back - hate with a vengeance.

Florida governor Charlie Crist said it best when he was FL-AG; paraphrasing, "Expediency is more important than innocence." This was in response to the Innocence Project's growing interest in Florida's questionable convictions in capital cases - and Crist's effort to enact a law requiring the destruction of DNA evidence older than two years from the date of conviction.

Titus, I live SW of Boston, and that's as specific as I will get. I have to maintain deep cover as being a conservative in my field is a threat to the viability of my employ. However, I am totally serious when I say I'd love to meet you for drinks sometime - you are a genuinely interesting character and no doubt a hoot to hoist a beer with.

Ann Althouse said... Yes, but Coakley's activities were in the late 90s and she still believes in those old prosecutions.

Ann, to expand, she was there at the beginning working as an ADA. and below is the release story quote from 2004. She was still flogging the case then. Note Tooky was NOT commuted, Coakley stopped that, he was paroled as a high end sex offender wearing an ankle bracelet 24/7 with a curfew and unable to get work as a result. So his Coakley nightmare continues.

Now 50, Amirault won parole in October and passed psychological tests deeming him unlikely to reoffend. Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley decided the state did not have a strong enough case to keep Amirault behind bars as a sexual predator.

Note in 2004, she still said he was guilty, but ran out of tools to hold him.

How is this any different from Salem in the 1690s? All that 300+ years of legal "development" court deliberations and precedent, law schools and endless debating of great minds, wonderful arguments and daunting challenges to become well versed legal minds with admirable credentials equals little in the end. All over the country this shit happened. I watched it in horror and disbelief.

From now on, just ask some superstitious pilgrims who to hang and find something better to do.

I hope my disappointment with the legal profession isn't showing, but this shit pisses me off, and it does not get easier to take with repeated hearing.

since this case appears to be sooooooooo important to the local wing nut pack, why haven't we read any similar comments about a couple of other people who were in on all kinds of cases that were also quite important, especially considering the final act.

maybe this will refresh your memories:

George W. Bush during his six years as governor of Texas presided over 152 executions, more than any other governor in the recent history of the United States. Bush has said: "I take every death penalty case seriously and review each case carefully.... Each case is major because each case is life or death."

He might have succeeded in bequeathing to history this image of himself as a scrupulously fair-minded governor if the journalist Alan Berlow had not used the Public Information Act to gain access to fifty-seven confidential death penalty memos that Bush's legal counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, whom President Bush has chose as his lap dog attorney general of the United States, presented to him, usually on the very day of execution.

The reports Gonzales presented could not be more cursory.

Take, for example, the case of Terry Washington, a mentally retarded man of thirty-three with the communication skills of a seven-year-old. Washington's plea for clemency came before Governor Bush on the morning of May 6, 1997.

After a thirty-minute briefing by Gonzales, Bush checked "Deny"—just as he had denied twenty-nine other pleas for clemency in his first twenty-eight months as governor.

*and anybody who doesn't believe some of these people who were put to death weren't guilty is a lying fool.

bag-o-wind - "Coakley must go down, and every lawyer should be saying so."

i certainly won't defend her on this specific case because it sounds like a cluster fuck, but you might want to run that your newly found indignation by the vast majority of prosecutors (left and right of the aisle) throughout america. (and throw mr. bush & gonzales into the mix, too.)

you won't find many who haven't fucked something up...and you can't get 'em to admit they're wrong no matter how much evidence to the contrary shows up.

@Jeremy- Ummm... Bush isn't running for Senator of Massachusetts. Coakley is, so her record is relevant while Bush's is not.

Coakley's handling of this particular case here is especially relevant because it seems to provide a window on her deeper character. When people look through that window, they see someone who doesn't have a sense of compassion or honesty.

It seems to me to be actually quite similar to that way Bush's cavalier use of torture and his bald-face lie that "we don't torture" provided a window into his deeper character.

bag-o-wind - you can't whine about a specific case from almost 10 years ago...and act as if the massive number of people who put to death via your hero and his sidekick isn't relevant to the conversation.

you evidently didn't feel there was a problem with bush or gonzales when you pulled the lever for little georgie...twice.

If Coakley is precluded because of this shouldn't Romney be as well? He did, after all, reject Gerald Amirault's petition for commutation. (Setting aside whatever additional pardon powers the governor of MA may have.) Or should we expect that a prosecutor has less deference to prior prosecutions? As a matter of "checks and balances" I would think it be the opposite.

bagoh20...Lawyers are not the class you need to reject. You need to reject the Women's Club in political bureaucracies that see their own survival as a politically organised force more important than the rights of male citizens on the wrong side of history. Coakley assumed her position in the Club and it's alliances with Democrats in DC made her fireproof.

Julius Ray Hoffman said..."Jeremy- Ummm... Bush isn't running for Senator of Massachusetts. Coakley is, so her record is relevant while Bush's is not."

oh, bullshit.

this sudden indignation about the woman's "ethics" is nothing more than the standard right wing attack strategy that is certainly "relevant" when considering the fact that you and most of the others here certainly didn't think people possible being put to death in texas was important to george w. bush's "ethics."

and if this is soooooo important, why is just appearing on the queen's blog site?

why weren't you and others screaming about it yesterday or the day before or the weeks before?

the case is from 2001 and until the article appears in the WSJ...nobody appears to have been the least bit offended.

Julius Ray Hoffman - "Coakley's handling of this particular case here is especially relevant because it seems to provide a window on her deeper character."

really?

this one case...is "especially relevant" to how we should perceive the woman's "character?"

well, what does the following say about the man you and others voted into the white house, twice...say about HIS character? (and if such things are so important...why did you vote for him??)

Take, for example, the case of Terry Washington, a mentally retarded man of thirty-three with the communication skills of a seven-year-old. Washington's plea for clemency came before Governor Bush on the morning of May 6, 1997.

After a thirty-minute briefing by Gonzales, Bush checked "Deny"—just as he had denied twenty-nine other pleas for clemency in his first twenty-eight months as governor.(Sister Helen Prejean / 2005)

@Jeremy- Prosecutorial and police abuses are ALWAYS abhorrent-- in Texas, in California, in Massachusetts, and anywhere else. I think that if someone engages in that sort of malevolent dishonesty, they are unsuited for office, and especially unsuited for jumping from a State AG to a United States Senator!

The same applied to Bush. I think he should have been kicked out of office as soon as he said in a televised speech that "we don't torture". It was a lie of the worst kind-- dehumanizing and obstructive and dishonest, all so that he could try to avoid an uncomfortable political situation.

Coakley is just like Bush in this way. She's guilty of the same sort of sins. It is morally imperative that she be prevented from succeeding in this election.

To be fair Coakley was not the original prosecutor. This is fairly thin gruel. She doesn't deserve to be Senator for other reasons. Frankly this post stinks of Althouse Republicanism. She is clearly a GOP plant.

Althouse, that makes Coakley yet another in a long line of proescutors who let themselves do awful things to ordinary people and divorce the legal process from actual justice. I'm not confused about the timeline.

If Coakley is precluded because of this shouldn't Romney be as well? He did, after all, reject Gerald Amirault's petition for commutation.

Actually, Romney didn't. Though he was hardly a profile in courage in this case...much as Reagan and his whole Justice Dept was AWOL when this whole child molestation witch hunt hysteria took off in the early 80s. And add Bush I keeping silent about it, and Clinton appointing one of the witch-hunters as AG.

What actually happened was that the Board of Pardons in 2001 voted 5-0 to commute Gerald Amirault's sentence. Martha Coakley, enraged, personally went to the hapless Jane Swift to appeal - "female to female" that Swift reject the commutation. Swift considered it. Coakley then made a second persona; appeal, which the awful by both Republican and Democrat consensus, Gov. Swift, accepted.

When Romney was elected two years later in 2003, Amirault's attorneys asked for a commutation or return to Board of Pardons for a new recommendation. Romney did not want to reverse what another governor did years back, so he kicked it to the Board to decide, based on what Coakley and Amiraults attorney said was new evidence, that butressed either the pro or con arguments.

In March 2003, the Board of Pardons announced to Gov. Romney that they would take longer to deliberate than the upcoming October Parole hearing would take, which was likely to release Amirault on Parole.

Amirault was released on Parole then, but not before Coakley mulled making him a "dangerous sex offender" who would be permanently imprisoned anyways. (Then the Head Dem Powers that Be in Massachusetts evidently told Coakley to shut up and let the whole steaming pile of shit Misslesex Prosecutors had created go away).As a last stab, Coakley ensured that Amirault was branded, as a condition for Parole, a Level 3 Registered Sex Offender - the most dangerous sort.

Why was Coakley elected AG in 2006? The rage against Bush by that time outside the South, especially in New England - meant the Dems could nominate any dutiful hack they had and be guaranteed a victory. If not Coakley getting 73% of the vote, they could have won even putting the corpse of Mary Jo Kopechne up against ANY Republican.

Then I guess I just don't understand why you aren't shocked at Coakley's persistence of belief that she'd done the right thing and her scary certitude about it. It was one thing to make these mistakes in the 80s, but to go on and on after the wrongness has been staring you in the face for years. That's something else entirely.

Traditional guy: Then we have Timmy Pawlenty who is young and white, but acts like a wimp rather than a fighter.

Sorry he doesn't look like Arnold or swagger like Bush, but Pawlenty has been pretty damned effective as a GOP governor in a blue state, with Dem majorities in the legislature. If you want more flash than substance, I'm sure there's a candidate out there for you.

And it's not just the behind-the-scenes stuff he's good at. He's a pretty good stump speaker, too.

"but to go on and on after the wrongness has been staring you in the face for years. That's something else entirely"

get real.

prosecutors damn near never admit to being wrong...and i don't care if they're presented with DNA, recanted testimony or whatever...they almost always refuse to let go.

a man just got out of jail in l.a. last month after about 25 years, (and after the l.a. times ran a massive investigative article about the case) and even with detectives admitting they lied, screwed up and didn't themselves believe the guy was innocent...the prosecutor had to wait a few weeks before finally refusing to retry the man.

prosecutors damn near never admit to being wrong...and i don't care if they're presented with DNA, recanted testimony or whatever...they almost always refuse to let go.

Don't you implicitly support that whole attitude then by giving Coakley a "pass"? Is it okay to vote for evil if many of those in similar jobs are evil too?

Coakley is a prosecutor-- one of the bad ones. She is one of those who "damn near never admit to being wrong" even if presented with lots of evidence. She is someone who will "almost always refuse to let go".

If that's okay with you because it supports your political agenda, then things are never going to be different.

The only moral thing to do is to encourage the defeat of this evil woman Martha Coakley.

Julius Ray Hoffman said..."Don't you implicitly support that whole attitude then by giving Coakley a "pass"? Is it okay to vote for evil if many of those in similar jobs are evil too?"

i have no horse in this race.

my comment relates to the fact that prosecutors damn near ever admit that they're wrong (and neither would brown if he were a prosecutor). i also don't think it should be the primary focal point as to whether one should or should not vote for her. and the case being sited certainly doesn't mean that she is a "bad" prosecutor. (do you have the stats on all of her cases?)

i personally feel she would be a better representative of what i believe, and that he's a tea bagger (who won't even admit to being one) and i hope she wins.

What would be the response if doctors knowingly poisoned their patients to advance their careers, then got caught clearly doing so, were permitted to continue practicing, then got promoted and never admitted doing anything wrong.

Would you support them for Surgeon General. Would you even consider them eligible, or would it just be something any doctor would do in the same situation.

A new poll taken Thursday evening for Pajamas Media by CrossTarget – an Alexandria VA survey research firm – shows Scott Brown, a Republican, leading Martha Coakley, a Democrat, by 15.4% in Tuesday’s special election for the open Massachusetts US Senate seat.

The poll of 946 likely voters was conducted by telephone using interactive voice technology (IVR) and has a margin of error of +/- 3.19%.

Here is more from Patrick at Popehat. He mentions some of the other evil-doings Coakley has been involved in: the Louise Woodward prosecution, the Keith Winfield case, and her unsolicited authoritarian position on Melendez-Diaz.

Keep in mind that Popehat is very much anti-Republican. Still, they recommend that Massachusetts voters suck it up and vote for Republican Scott Brown.

There is something missing here. Appeals. Did the family or Gerald ever appeal their convictions?

Can Gerald appeal now and get his conviction overturned? If this evidence is so compelling why can't he apply to have his parole amended or at least have the monitor removed?

As to Coakley, the statute of limitations is probably up for the crime she committed. This was a malicious prosecution and an unconscious violation of rights. Of course, as a prosecutor, she is probably immune from any prosecution.

I do not believe that with a total lack of even basic forensic evidence and medical evidence that the trial ever went forward. Where was the judge's head?

But hey she is a Democrat- so let's just move on here. You know, not look behind, look at the future and all that happy horseshit.

By the by. It is Massachusetts. You know the state that elected Ted Kennedy over and over and over again. The Ted Kennedy that killed Mary Jo Kopechne and never even got a ticket. The Ted Kennedy that was involved in an array of sorrid drunken incidents. The Ted Kennedy who is one of the spawn of the Kennedy crime family.

The justices of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts have delivered an opinion reinstating the convictions won by the prosecutors in the Fells Acres Day School case -- a decision that ensures Cheryl Amirault will be going back to prison, probably within a month, and undermines all hope for a successful state court appeal for her brother, Gerald, behind bars since 1986.

The opinion is a telling document, as much for what the judges left out as for what they put in. Indeed, a reader who came to it knowing nothing about this prosecution would have been hard put to find in this decision any of the reasons this case had won such notoriety; nothing of the frenzied interrogations, the mad pleadings of interviewers exhorting children to tell, of the process by which small children were schooled in details of torments and sexual assaults supposedly inflicted on them in secret rooms -- matters, the record of these interviews reveals, that the children clearly knew nothing about.

The justices, in short, decided to confine their attention to matters that were in their view more significant than all that is now known about this prosecution, its foundation, the origins of the testimony that had led inexorably to the Amiraults' jury convictions. The unanimous opinion, written by Chief Justice Herbert P. Wilkins and signed by Justices John M. Greaney, Margaret H. Marshall, Ruth I. Abrams, Neil L. Lynch and Roderick L. Ireland -- confines itself largely to the arguments that the issue of tainted children's evidence was not new, that it had been presented at the original trials, and that the jury had, after all, believed the children anyway. The principle of "finality" would be compromised, the justices held, if they sustained the motion for a new trial in this case merely because more was now known about investigative tactics that could "cause a child witness to state false facts."

Looks like Coakley stepped in in deeper.In a radio interview, she said it would be best if people of strong religious belief didn't work in Emergency Rooms:

Ken Pittman: Right, if you are a Catholic, and believe what the Pope teaches that any form of birth control is a sin. ah you don't want to do that.

Martha Coakley: No we have a seperation of church and state Ken, lets be clear.

Ken Pittman: In the emergency room you still have your religious freedom.

Martha Coakley: (......uh, eh...um..) The law says that people are allowed to have that. You can have religious freedom but you probably shouldn't work in the emergency room.

A nurse, a pro-choice ex-Catholic, wrote the following:

If you've been raped, no one is performing an abortion on you in an ER. Period. You cannot get pregnant in milliseconds (as in egg fertilizes, spends days traveling down the tube, then implants). Ergo, the only thing that can happen is emergency oral contraception. That has to be taken within 72 hours, not minutes. It is not an emergency procedure. As to Catholic hospitals, indeed I've read in the media over the past few years that they DO want to take over Catholic hospitals and decide what their policies are. Freedom of religion is going to rapidly be replaced with freedom from religion. As a former Catholic, I am pro choice when it comes to emergency contraception, but I support a facility's right to make these choices for themselves. As to Coakley, she's an epic tool of the far left. Nothing more than a talking point mouthpiece of no substance.

This is fairly thin gruel. She doesn't deserve to be Senator for other reasons.

Thin gruel? She went on television to buttress her position that this man was guilty. She brought in the parents and the then older children to rehash it all, what 10 years later?

The kids had to go through it all again. Talk about needing therapy! OMG. These kids (now adults) were the victims of horrendous malpractice by the mental health and legal community -- not of the Amiraults. (I have no idea if any have figured it out -- it is a terrible burden to put on someone. It really screws with someone's mind.)

Rabinowitz due to space limitations only mentioned the "rape" with the knife, the abuse -- on a front lawn, and a squirrel mutilation. (Think hard -- watched any bad crime shows? How many 28 year old women are catching squirrels and cutting their legs off? Oh, right.) There were other bizarre allegations which defy rational acceptance.

There were no physical findings at all of rape or abuse.

Coakley's judgment in her pursuit of this is horrible to the point of being evil.

As for the picking on Beth, Peter -- the discussion is being continued from the Brown "I was a jerk" post yesterday. Way before the convivial dancing started last night. ;-)

""Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley blocked the donation of Costin's heart after he was diagnosed clinically brain-dead," writes Sean P Murphy of the Globe, "to preclude any possibility that his assailant's lawyer might contend at the trial that Costin died of a pre-existing heart condition rather than the beating."

Althouse, why would you assume I'm not shocked? If by shocked you mean surprised, then no, I guess I'm not. But if by shocked you mean sickened, then of course I am. I'm refusing to let John herd me into his own agenda - he's a troll and I'm not playing his game.

I'm not surprised, and I don't believe that Coakley is uniquely awful - unfortunately, there are some awful abuses of power by DAs on a regular basis. If people think Coakley is exceptional, well, I think they're wrong.

I honestly don't know anyone who would do something like what she did, but I don't run in prosecutor circles. They must be the most despicable of people. How could a whole profession get so bad. Justice wants to know.

Thanks Lem. But to my knowledge there were no federal appeals. I mean, fifteen years in prison and no one in the legal community stepped forward? Even after the first Rabinowitz article there were no federal appeals.

Was it lack of money or some technicality?

They have been using his case as an example of what not to do in these cases even while he was in prison. I do not get it. It was not broached in a radio intervew either.

Then there is the Winfield case- 2005. Winfield was a cop who raped an infant girl- his niece- with a hot curling iron.

Coakley, the District Attorney dragged her feet for ten months and even allowed Winfield to be released on bond- personal recognizance bond. even tough there was evidence. The baby's mother screamed to high heaven for a long time. Coakley's sucessor brought it to the grand jury. Winfield is in for life- two life terms. Her excuse- she did not think the case had merit so she used prosecutorial discretion.

Yep, Coakley is for the children alright. It is all for the children you know.

"A condition of the Amiraults' parole was that they would have to return to prison pending any appeal. Technically they could appeal, but as a practical matter, there was no way they could go forward with it.

Also, Cheryl was enjoined from ever discussing the case on television, and, I believe, radio, subject to certain limitations."

Are you kidding me? What country are we in? I had no idea how debased this system is. That a court would allow such stipulations on the ones who were clearly already the victims of the system. I'm glad I'm a business man, we only have greedy people, but at least it's not a flat out evil construction we work in.

Remember Father John Geoghan? The poster boy pedophile priest that brought the Boston Archdiocese down? In 1995 Coakley let him plea bargain out of child molestation charges and allowed him to receive probation. The deal was kept secret from the public.

Father Geoghan went on to molest again and again.

She did eventually prosecute him in 2002- for pinching the butt of a boy. I guess she had no choice.

In November Coakley filed a financial disclosure form in relation to her run for the Senate. She stated that neither she not her spouse had reportable assets over one thousand dollars.

WHen it was discovered that they had around 262,000 in reportable assets she did a Harry Reid and Charles Rangel- oops. She goofed, misunderstood, make an innocent mistake. Then invoked the mantra of the Criminal Democrat Party- let's just move on.

Alright, now I think people are making shit up - nobody is this bad a freakin human and gets this far. I understand a lobbyist getting you a prostitute or maybe getting a speeding ticket handled, but this is ridiculous. Does her mother like her?

Do some searching. Nothing is made up. We are talking about Massachusetts. The Democrat party there is about as corrupt as the Chicago Party. How else do you explain Kennedy?

BTW, she refused to investigate allegations that Gov. Deval Patrick took huge campaign donations from a utility to pass a rate hike and kill a green project. The rate hike went in and the project was killed(Boston Globe).

This is unbelievable. Does she know all shit she has pulled? Maybe she tokes a little and just forgets that she already passed her evil quota for a human in one lifetime.

I'm expecting a speech by her any day, where she says: "After reading all the reports of my record, I strongly suggest you vote for the other guy no matter who it is, because I'm a pretty nasty piece of work. Good night and god bless America."

Althouse, why would you assume I'm not shocked? If by shocked you mean surprised, then no, I guess I'm not. But if by shocked you mean sickened, then of course I am. ... I'm not surprised, and I don't believe that Coakley is uniquely awful ... If people think Coakley is exceptional, well, I think they're wrong.

Beth, the simple question before us is this. Is the person who would participate in the Amirault travesty, and who has done her uttermost to deny that poor family justice, fit to be a United States Senator? Because the words you've chosen to use in your comments leads me to think that you're trying to express the "everybody does it" excuse, and you're too decent to go all the way. But it's scary how close you come.

Beth is completely right on this and I say that as someone who generally takes the opposite political side of her in comments on Althouse posts.

John, stop being an asshole and read on:

I live in a particular county in California that has a DA's office with a 100% record of convictions going back over a dozen years. My wife and I socially know the DA that began the perfect record in the 90's. The current DA, a Democrat with years of law and order experience in the CA legislature, is basically a good man.

But the problem in maintaining a 100% winning average is the temptation to "fix" the game.

A close friend of ours has an adult son who was accused of aiding a robbery from a major goods distributor that he worked for. The 2 people caught with the goods pled for lesser sentences by fingering this young man. Though there was no evidence that he was involved, and though our friend insisted on going to trial (this began 2 years ago), AND EVEN THOUGH IN NOVEMBER ONE OF THE 2 GUILTY THIEVES CONFESSED THAT HE HAD LIED IN ACCUSING OUR FRIEND, the DA's office nonetheless continued to delay the trial, using up our friend's entire nest egg. The stress on his family - his wife suffered a miscarriage and has been hospitalized for continued stress - finally caused our friend to plea bargain to - READY - 30 days of house arrest and a $50 fine and a misdemeanor charge. AND THE GUILTY MAN CONFESSED THAT OUR FRIEND DIDN"T DO IT.

We have a local journalist on the story who is following 7 other similar miscarriages of justice. His editor plans to have him work on the story and grow it with plans to run it during the next DA election period.

That's the kind of agenda journalism I approve of.

SO, again Beth is right on this one. Too many - perhaps even most - Prosecutors in this country have sold their souls and made a deal with devil.

Big Mike - I'm missing something here. I don't believe that Beth is condoning Coakley for anything - in fact, unless I am wrong - she is saying that the Massachusettes electorate can probably see through it.

Because the words you've chosen to use in your comments leads me to think that you're trying to express the "everybody does it" excuse, and you're too decent to go all the way.

Big Mike, no, that's not at all what I've said. I'm saying she's all too typical. There are, of course, mostly perfectly fine people working as DAs and in DAs' offices all over the country. But I'd bet we all have stories about questionable prosecutions in our areas, aside from the big, obvious ones that make national press. Elected DAs have to run on who and how many people they've convicted. Isn't that a recipe for abuse?

This is one of the reasons that the founding fathers thought we needed to be protected from our government by limiting its powers.

Govenment officials DO NOT have our best intersts at heart--they have their own interests and careers front and center. They will happily abuse our rights in order to further their own power, prestiege, influence, and alliances with the powerful.

This is exactly the very dangerous policy of the Democratic statists and authoritarians who are now in power in Washingto--Pelosi, Reid, and Obama.

"Elected DAs have to run on who and how many people they've convicted. Isn't that a recipe for abuse?"

Elected office should be the cleanest. All that is required is a professional, unbiased, and energetic press, because when people hear this stuff it gets them pissed. Conviction stats become useless as soon as this kind of abuse is known. Some markets have "bipartisan" talk radio jocks that expose this stuff and it really can make a difference. I can't believe that an electorate, if informed about a D.A. like Coakley, would elect her to anything. But, the willful blindness I've seen recently gives me little confidence in the press. Love them internets though. Praise the microchip!

We have plenty of corruption in our D.A.s here in L.A. too, but I've never seen so much crap sticking to one before.

I'm going to pretend I'm an enthusiastic supporter of the Senate and House health care bills. I love the individual mandate. I think union members and government workers deserve to pay lower taxes on the same assets than others. I love big cuts in Medicare. And I yearn to have my final exit determined by a death panel.

Having read of Coakley's involvement in this case, I would vote for Brown anyway. Abusive, lying prosecutors shielding themselves with the law are the lowest of the low and deserve only shame and failure.

The press is very pro-prosecution. In a case with which I am familiar, reporters repeatedly prodded the prosecutor to hurry up and file charges in order to validate a story they'd worked.

This is another shocking evolution in liberalism, an accompaniment to their loss of support for freedom of speech. When I was a young liberal, prosecutors were the bad guys. Now liberals and much of the media are on their knees before them.

The recovered memory "Science" to implant thoughts in adults and the child abuse squad's methods of questioning children to implant thoughts in children were the Fake Science of the 1980's. Today we have the results of 18 years of the fake science of CO2 warming the globe. And remember that John Edwards was a wealthy man from using the fake science of fetal distress. The Democrats freely use fake science like another cult belief. The are "educated in faking science" just enough to be famous frauds with no fear of getting caught. The courage to fight this fake science cults depends upon support from the educated people who know better, but like to remain silent so long as someone else is getting ruined while they themselves stand to profit . Coakley is a weak loser who rode this easy abuse of fake science for 20 years of her career. The only antidote to her type of delusion based governmental attacks upon the innocent, being done with the MSM's help, is a boldly expressed love for the truth. That is why Crack Emcee is very important and totally relevant today. He is where its happening.